


Four Weeks (A Romance)

by Kerfluffle



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cobb is a dick, Drunkenness, M/M, Ridiculous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-05 03:19:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kerfluffle/pseuds/Kerfluffle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>The birds were chirping, the sun was shining, and Eames was going to prison. </em>
</p><p>Or: AU where Eames the painter has to edit audio books as part of his court-ordered community service, Arthur the lawyer needs to be set free from 24/7 Dom Cobb care, and Ariadne and Yusuf mostly just drink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Weeks (A Romance)

“Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the st…stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a ray-zor lay crossed,” mumbled the soft and unsure voice of a woman, probably fidgeting with her reading glasses as she read aloud. Eames grimaced. The lady’s voice issued from his headphones with a bit of fuzz, and just like that, Eames had a splitting headache threatening to out-battle his resolve.

How did he get himself into these messes? 

For the next four weeks of his life, Eames was to be a volunteer editor at Cobb Learning and Associates, a company that specialized in creating audiobooks for the visually impaired, and one that relied heavily on the help of caring souls. 

The idea was unquestionably excellent, the product was topnotch, and the impact on the community was significant; Eames’s greatest worry came in the form of listening to this woman go about _butchering_ Joyce—merrily—for the next seven hours of his life. 

“A little trouble about those white cor-pus-cles,” said the lady flatly.

“Oh my god,” said Eames, and he buried his head in his hands.

*  
 _One week ago…_

The birds were chirping, the sun was shining, and Eames was going to prison. 

He stood in the courtroom and fumed, leveling glares at anything that moved, but particularly at that _prick_ of an officer who had the gall to turn this unpaid parking fine business into a thing. Eames’ meter hadn’t run out until he stood well within yelling distance from the vehicle in question, watching helplessly as this wannabe-policeman slapped a cruel slip of paper onto the windshield of Eames’ pickup truck. 

“Hey!” Eames had called, sprinting forward with his brown bag of liquor and paints in hand, “I’m coming, I’m right here!” But the parking enforcer had been unmoved by Eames’ charm, flirting, aggression, and finally sad pleas, and had walked away with a fat smirk on his face.

“I’m not bloody paying this!” Eames had yelled belligerently, shaking his fist in such a manner that he hoped would convey his righteous anger at the injustice. “Fuck,” he said privately, and gunned the engine with a frown. 

Eames had, back in the day, laundered money, stolen a Kandinsky, nicked upwards of 50 cigarette packs (the rebellious teen years), forged checks, pickpocketed businessmen, and committed light insurance fraud. But it just figured that what would finally land Eames in trouble with the American legal system was a fucking parking offense. 

His options were crystal clear: pay the ticket, or face the wrath of the court.

“Your pitiful country is a joke, and its flaccid legal system is the punch line,” Eames said, bored.

(His self-preservation instincts were not renowned for a reason.) 

The courtroom went dead silent. Eames thought he saw the judge’s left eye twitch. At the very least his temple vein throbbed quite nicely.

Moments later, Eames found himself being awarded the maximum penalty for a transgression of this nature: four long and soul-crushing weeks of community service.

** 

If you had asked Arthur three years ago where he saw himself now, he would probably have shrugged in that matter-of-fact way of his before saying with confidence, “Working at a law firm, I suppose.” 

If you had asked his then-roommate, Ariadne, the same question, she would have rolled her eyes before saying in a voice thick with sarcasm, “Waiting on Cobb hand and foot, although he’ll probably have been promoted to butler by then—fingers crossed.”

In addition to putting himself through law school and paying off a never-ending stack of student loans, Arthur had shouldered the full burden of 24/7 Dominic Cobb care. He deserved fucking medal.

The untimely death of Mal had been beyond tragic—on that everyone could agree—because when Mal smiled you smiled without realizing it. Grieving together, friends and acquaintances understood that Cobb would need a considerable amount of time to stand back on his feet. 

But three years later, with Cobb still clinging to Arthur like a particularly needy blond parasite, the time for patience was past. 

“The time for patience is past,” crowed Ariadne, red-cheeked and drunk in their cozy faux-leather booth. If architecture didn’t pan out, she’d make a damn fine revolutionary some day. “Cobb has got to learn… relearn?... to wipe his own ass, Arthur.” 

Arthur, nose pinched between his thumb and forefinger, didn’t respond. 

“Do you hear me, Arthur? Stop. Wiping. His. Ass.” She slammed her daiquiri onto the lacquered tabletop for emphasis.

“Loud and clear, Ari,” Arthur said finally, rolling his glass between his hands. “Now would you please keep it down? If we get kicked out of here again they might not let us back.” 

Ariadne grinned at him and bared her teeth. “I’m okay with that, I think. This bartender is shitty anyway,” her voice rose perilously high, “what with the way he keeps watering down the FUCKING drinks around here—” 

Later, having been banished to the full brunt of D.C.’s springtime humidity, Ariadne clung to Arthur’s left arm.

“’M sorry,” she slurred. “I didn’t really want to be all… loud.” She sighed. “If I keep my pinky up, can I still be classy?”

Arthur laughed, pulling Ariadne closer. “You’re always classy,” he said brightly.

Then she threw up on his new shoes. 

*

There exists a generic question that gets thrown around from time to time. In theory it functions as an icebreaker, but in practice it tends to stop a conversation cold: if your house were on fire and you could only save one thing, what would you take?

Most people couldn’t think of an answer—a good one at least—because the majority of the population would find it unnatural or even crass to prioritize the things closest to them. _Do pets count?_ They quibble. _Do I seem shallow if I say my laptop?_

Fortunately, Arthur (not most people) was spared from having to make such an agonizing decision, as he owned a German espresso maker.

“Good job,” he told the machine while it steamed the milk for a cappuccino. “Full marks.”

“Nnngh,” came Ariadne’s scratchy voice from the vicinity of his worn leather couch.

“Water’s in a cup on the floor,” Arthur called, cradling the fresh mug of coffee between his palms. “And I left some Advil on the table.”

“Mmmgh.”

“You’re welcome.”

**

What was the rational response in the wake of being handed community service hours like some bloody child? If you were Eames, it meant heading to his favorite bar—sans wingman—and getting uproariously, unforgivably drunk. 

“This’s swill,” he said with a face, and promptly drained the glass.

Every now and again Eames spent a few seconds scanning the dim room, head spinning, but nobody really caught his eye. He had come here to escape, not to get laid, but it only seemed an upside if that happened as well. 

Eames, three sheets to the wind, had just returned from a quick visit to the gents’ when he felt a light hand tap on his shoulder, and Eames found himself turning around to see…

Blackness

…Eames awoke, abruptly, and tried not to whimper in the sheer agony of it all. He squinted menacingly at the bedside alarm clock, but it remained unperturbed. 8:03 am. Drunksomnia strikes again. At least it was _his_ bed this time, and not a hammock in the south of France. 

On a hunch, Eames flung an arm out to the side, trying to feel for another warm, hungover body. Despite floundering about thoroughly, he came away with only mattress. The sheets were cool enough that if someone else had been sleeping there, they’d left a while ago. 

“Shit,” said Eames. He made a noble attempt to conjure up a picture of last night, retrieving nonsensical fragments for his effort. The gay bar. Disgusting tequila-laced drinks (Eames hadn’t touched Jose Cuervo since Cinco de Mayo 2006, ugh). Urinals. A hand. And… Eames thought hard. A voice. He could remember the voice of a man, gruff and steady and pissed out his mind. 

“Can I buy you a drink?” He thought the man might have asked. 

Eames, ever the charmer, had probably smiled back and said something to the effect of, “No, but you can come home with me, darling,” because he was a smooth motherfucker. 

Bizarrely, the man had said yes.

But now Eames was alone and the world was a very, very sad place. Eames hoped the sex wasn’t that terrible. Usually his flings at least stayed for breakfast, maybe a round two if they had the time.

Eames squinched his eyes shut and managed to fall back into blissful darkness for a few more hours.

**

“ _You_ had a one-night stand?” crowed Ariadne with a lot more glee than the situation merited. She sounded well for someone 24 hours removed from worshipping at the porcelain throne. “ _You_? Arthur you floozy! Welcome to the slut club!” Ariadne stopped bouncing long enough to pause. “And I mean that in only the positive sense, of course. There will be absolutely zero slut shaming around here.” Her smile returned, “I’m just so fucking proud.”

Arthur deeply regretted sharing this particular adventure over their customary Sunday brunch. “I don’t remember much,” he said honestly, picking at his spinach and egg. “I haven’t blacked out like that since college. It’s so juvenile.”

Ariadne rolled her eyes and snagged a piece of his bacon, coating it in maple syrup. “Yeah yeah yeah and you’re a _grown up_ and a _lawyer_ and fun is illegal now—I know how it goes.” 

Arthur took a delicate drink from his coffee mug. 

“So tell me everything,” she continued, grinning conspiratorially, “I need facts, measurements, the full Arthurian evaluation.”

There was no easy way to explain this. “I, um, don’t really know?” He managed. Arthur scratched the back of his head. “Last night was less of a blur and more of a black hole, to be honest.” 

“He didn’t disappear before you got up, did he?” Ariadne asked, the beginnings of a frown pinching her forehead. “That little coward.”

“No, Ari, it’s not like that.” Arthur looked anywhere but at the seat across from him. “I may have panicked, okay?” He slumped in his chair. “It’s just that I was in someone else’s apartment and his paintings were everywhere and he was snoring next to me and I don’t do this kind of thing. It was too real.” 

Ariadne’s eyes narrowed. “So you ran,” she finished. “Oh, _Arthur_.” 

They ate the last of their omelets, Ariadne with gusto and Arthur with a sense of duty, before he gathered the plates and brought them to the sink. 

“I guess the sex wasn’t anything to write home about then, hmm?” Ariadne mused as off-handedly as she could, sliding down from the counter stool and padding across the kitchen. 

Arthur gave her a look. “It was the best drunk sex of my life,” he said, deadpan. 

Ariadne smirked and patted his arm in passing. “That’s my boy.” 

* 

Of course, Eames had taken a good degree of satisfaction in the discovery that he was to work at an audiobook recording studio. No mere manual labor for him. It sounded more like a reward than a punishment, and Eames did fancy himself a fairly well read man.

In essence, Eames had felt out of sorts since the departure of his most recent boyfriend, just another name on the increasingly lengthy list of erased contacts and furtive visits to a tattoo-removal parlor. This sense of unbalance had no doubt fueled Eames’s artistic output, going through what he later termed his melancholy-tangerine phase, but it had done little to help his overall temper. 

Point in fact: Eames’s own mother was liable to label her only son as someone prone to “mood swings.” A brokenhearted Eames was a little like unleashing an emotionally stunted rhinoceros. He lashed out when confronted with things that didn’t bother him in the slightest and bottled up everything that did. 

But no matter, Eames sat in a dinky office space and listened to the off-putting nasal voice of some retired man talk about different cat breeds as penance for his crime. And boy did Eames feel ready to repent. 

“Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the Scottish Fold—and indeed its namesake—is the folded-over ear cartilage that gives this breed a certain owlish quality.” 

Eames, for the first time in his life, began to wish that _his_ ears would fold, if only to impede this horrible man’s assault on his sanity. Instead he obediently followed along on the printout, double-checking that the reader had not accidentally skipped over any sentences or otherwise compromised the recording. 

“This feline friend,” nasal man continued with, from what Eames had gathered, was his version of enthusiasm, “truly is America’s sweetheart.” 

**

When Cobb had launched Cobb Learning and Associates (on schedule!) some three years ago, Arthur had taken it as a sign that he was ready to return to the world at large. Finally, Cobb had a vested interest in something greater than himself, and it would serve to keep him anchored in the present rather than lost in the past. 

Arthur was quickly stripped of such preposterous illusions. 

“My friend,” Dom had cried, looping his arm around Arthur’s shoulder and walking them towards the study, “there’s a small favor I must ask of you...”

Apparently the going rate for handling all the financials of an upstart corporation was “kindness.”

“Six months, Dom,” Arthur had narrowed his eyes, “and then you’re on your own.”

“Also, would you mind babysitting the kids tonight?” Cobb’s shoulders had hunched in sadness. “I just have _so_ much work to do.” 

“25 dollars an hour.” 

“That’s highway robbery!”

**

“…Why are you staring at Buckminster like he’s urinated in your loafers?” Yusuf asked Eames later that night, head cocked in confusion. They sat sprawled on the sofa of their shared living quarters, some action flick muted on the television and beer bottles scattered throughout. Eames, startled, looked away from the monstrous tabby licking itself on their coffee table and back to his Chinese take-away.

“Knowing him, he probably has,” Eames snarked, glowering, for a moment, at an unfortunate memory of days gone by. When Yusuf’s politely bland expression didn’t change, he continued, “It was just a shit day, is all. This community service nonsense is putting me off.” 

He carefully herded all memories of gruff-voiced men far away from his mind. 

“Yes, well, perhaps you’ll remember that next time _before_ you go and tell a courtroom full of upstanding citizens to go fuck themselves, huh?” Yusuf said, good-naturedly enough. If he were in a position to reach Eames’ shoulder, he would no doubt have touched it; instead Yusuf tapped on Eames’ ankle and deftly returned to his chopsticks like it never happened. 

They ate in silence for a bit, and Eames turned up the volume on the movie. He swung his feet onto the small wooden table, dislodging Buckminster in the process. The cat stalked out in a huff. 

Washington, D.C. may not have been the most picturesque city, but they were afforded a decent view of the bustle on the streets below, and this apartment came with beautiful oak floors. Eames only occasionally forgot to wash his feet and tracked paint everywhere. 

On screen, a villain with a horrendous posh British accent announced his grandiose plans for world domination.

“Right,” said Yusuf eventually, eyes at half-mast, “I’ve got a class at nine tomorrow, and it would be ungainly for me to look more hungover than my students. G’night!” He padded back towards his room, feet shuffling on the floor.

“’Night.” Eames leaned his head back and called, “You will consider wearing those professor glasses I bought, won’t you? I think you look dashing in them.” Yusuf’s response was a one-fingered salute. 

**

Some people drank tea; Arthur went to the shooting range. It had taken hours of research and few close run-ins with burly men holding shotguns, but none of that mattered now, because Arthur had finally found _the_ place. No flaw escaped his thorough, probing gaze, so the fact that this locale had earned the elusive perfect ten spoke volumes. From the pistol selection to the spacious bathrooms equipped with full-length mirrors, there wasn’t a part Arthur could find fault in… except, perhaps, for Ariadne’s frankly alarming enthusiasm.

The woman could _shoot_. 

While Arthur thought of the experience as cathartic, a way to wind down after a demanding week, it only functioned to amp Ari up.

“Goddamn,” she whistled, shaking out her arms, “I don’t know about you but I could _kill_ for a Redbull.” Arthur had the sudden but nonetheless frightening image of a hummingbird clutching a sub-automatic flash across his mind. 

“I’d rather have pizza,” he responded, placating, as they made the trek back to the gun-return desk.

“Let’s order something spicy!” Ariadne twittered. “I want to feel my throat _burn_.”

Arthur frowned. “I need new friends,” he muttered. 

As they got into Arthur’s Prius, his phone began to chirp. Two new texts from Dom, it informed him with tinny cheer.

Ariadne yanked her seatbelt on violently. “Speak of the devil…”

“He wants to know if we’ll go to dinner with him tonight.”

“I’d rather bite off my own foot.”

“We can go to that new Indian place you’ve had your eye on…”

“I hate you.”

Arthur drove the whole way there smug in his victory. 

**

To kill the lengthy hours and their accompanying tedium, Eames listened to his readers’ voices while imagining how they looked in real life. Was Mr. Deep Throat as intimidating as he sounded? Could Ms. Like and Um’s verbal tics be a symptom of her age? His concocted stories grew more elaborate, adding details down to his speakers’ preferred brands of soap and whether or not they remembered to floss before bed. 

“Maybe,” Eames spoke cautiously at the end of week one, “maybe this won’t be so terrible after all.”

He should have known.

Three hours into listening as a middle-aged man talked breathily in his ear about puberty and sexual education, Eames was forced to hit pause and fling the recording at the ‘completed’ box on his right. 

“Christ,” he scrubbed a hand across his face in disgust, “if hell were to have a soundtrack…”

He decided to search the archives at random instead, reading titles and promptly rejecting every one of them until he came to the semi-promising _Dream Anatomy: A Primer_ , penned by Dominic Cobb himself. Eames already knew that Cobb’s interest in audiobooks stemmed from his own passion for writing, as well as the fact that there was a rather specific reason Cobb had made the switch from writer to business manager; that was, his books _sucked_. But Lord knows Eames needed a good laugh, so he popped in the first tape and settled back in his chair, expectant. 

The words didn’t even register. The book could have been a treatise on lunchmeat for all Eames cared, because someone _glorious_ was speaking, and his voice ignited something in Eames that he had more or less forgotten still existed. As outlandish as the entire situation was, Eames recognized his voice as that of his one-night stand. Maybe it was the precise clarity of each in inflection (Eames could almost picture his mystery-reader puzzling out exact pronunciations ahead of time) or the rich, somewhat gravelly quality of his voice—the way it got deeper when he emphasized a key point. Either way, Eames’s head swam, and he thought for an instant, madly, that nothing was so important as finding out who had done the audio for Cobb’s purported magnum opus. 

_Don’t be ridiculous_ , Eames chided himself. Cobb couldn’t possibly have the time to tell him who had recorded what and where. On a deeper level, Eames knew all too well where funny feelings like the ones he was now experiencing led—nowhere pleasant. To distract himself, he stopped the tape with a reluctant exhale and indiscriminately grabbed another. It appeared innocuous enough. He picked up the accompanying sheets of paper and hit play. 

“Anatomy and Physiology. Glossary. The letter A. _A band_ : length of myosin myofilament in a sarcomere. _Absolute refractory period_ : portion of the action potential during which the membrane is insensitive to all stim—“

*

“What can I do for you, Mr. Eames?” asked Cobb. His fingers steepled as he lounged in a tempur-pedic chair by the wide plate glass window of his office.

“Just ‘Eames’ is great,” said Eames, and he shifted to his other foot. Maybe barging in on Cobb hadn’t been the brightest idea, even if the man did blatantly have an online solitaire window pulled up on his computer screen. All the other tabs seemed to be for Pottery Barn. “I was wondering if there is perhaps some way for me to get the name of a person who recorded some audio for you?” 

Cobb squinted calculatingly at him. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific than that… we keep a lot of names on file here at Cobb Learning.” Cobb puffed out his chest then, rather mimicking the mating habits of the male Frigatebird. (And _boy_ , the details Eames now knew about Frigatebird mating behavior thanks to this gig. Randy little buggers, the lot of them.) 

“It was one of your books,” Eames added helpfully, “The ‘this is what that dreams are made of’ one?” Cobb looked rather taken aback. 

“Oh,” Cobb said, smothering his surprise with what Eames could only assume was his idea of an apathetic gaze. The man looked stoned. “A personal friend did all my books for me, as a favor.” He spoke in a guarded voice, and Eames couldn’t help but wonder if he had stepped over a boundary. 

“Alright,” Eames hedged, debating whether or not it might be worth dragging the conversation out another few awkward minutes. “He just sounded a bit like someone I used to know.” 

Cobb’s tone was clipped, “I can guarantee that Arthur has never met you in his life.” 

“Arthur, is it?” Eames’ head perked up.

“Dammit!” Cobb swore. “You’re good.” 

**

Seated at a corner table in the dark ambiance of Indique Heights, Arthur and Cobb chatted at length about the exciting new direction that Cobb Learning was headed, while Ariadne chewed enthusiastically. 

“Sometimes I do worry about our volunteer policy though,” Cobb confided as he dipped garlic naan into his chicken masala. “Take this guy today—he’s doing court-ordered community service, and,” Cobb’s voice slunk to a scandalized whisper, “he’s covered in tattoos!”

Arthur sipped his water. “You have a tattoo, Dom, just so we’re on the level here.” 

Cobb hardly considered the _tasteful_ portrait of Mal’s face on his shoulder relevant to the discussion at hand. “Yes, but you should see him!” He tried to make them be reasonable. “All muscly and unshaven and British. It’s vulgar.”

“Sounds hot,” Ariadne offered up for discussion. “Do you think he’s straight?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care!” Cobb blustered. “But he came in today asking about Arthur, and he didn’t seem normal.”

“What?” Arthur dropped his fork. “How does he know me?”

“Something about your recordings of my literature,” Cobb gestured his hand vaguely upward. He didn’t trust the contemplative look on Arthur’s face. “The important thing to take away from this is that we’re _practically harboring convicts_.” 

Ariadne chugged her drink. “I can’t believe a hot guy asked you about Arthur.”

“Stop calling him hot,” Cobb’s mouth contorted in anger. “He’s lumpy looking. It’s a face only a mother could love. I promise.”

** 

Although the statistics perfectly indicated just how unlikely it would be for Eames to find another of Cobb’s Arthur-voiced audio books in the archive of uncompleted tapes, Eames chose to blame Cobb anyway. It was more convenient, and he really didn’t like the bastard. 

In the meantime, Eames listened to _Dream Anatomy_ in pieces, interspersing it with various and sundry tapes to better savor Arthur’s exquisite handling of such an absurd text. 

“Part XXII: Planning for that unexpected train,” said Arthur’s voice, as Eames followed the script half-heartedly and struggled to visualize its owner. Try as he might, Eames was having a maddeningly difficult time getting a read on him. See, nine times out of ten, Arthur sounded serious—the sort of buttoned-up, tie-wearing adult who would scowl at Eames and his old jeans as if he were an affront to real grown ups everywhere. But every now and again a note of something else would slip in—a little hint that Arthur didn’t really believe what he was saying, that he understood and was in on the joke. 

Eames was _this_ close to nicking the entire series of tapes, if only so he could listen to them when he lay in bed at night, thinking. But inevitably beds led to masturbation, and if jerking off to a disembodied voice wasn’t fantastically creepy, then Eames had truly gone off the deep end once and for all.

** 

Saturday night beckoned, and Arthur, ensconced in a blanket nest on his couch, felt a twinge of depression. He had seen Ariadne off on her date with a smile, making all the right comments and even helping choose an appropriate summer scarf to complete her bohemian-chic look… but he had to admit that watching the cooking channel in place of a social life, again, rankled.

Eight months had passed since Arthur’s messy breakup with Troy, a career minor league baseball player who was finally getting his shot at the big-time. To say it didn’t end well was a little like calling Everest a mound and a lot like watching a nuclear bomb detonate. Bowling balls may have been involved.

Arthur knew that he needed to “get back out there,” because “there were plenty of fish in the sea,” as his mother’s favorite expression went. “Like grains of sand in the Sahara...don't roll your eyes at me, Arthur.”

But between his burgeoning law career, managing _Dom’s_ career, and not becoming a full-time hermit in the process, Arthur simply had no energy left over to plaster on a grin and make stilted small talk, discussing subjects he couldn’t care less about on the off chance that it might get him laid. The weekend left him exhausted, not ready to mingle.

Naturally his first outing back into the fray of socialization had been an abject failure. The one drink for courage had turned into the six drinks of fear. Still, of the bits he could remember, both he and his mystery painter had performed quite well given the circumstances—defying odds, expectations, and possibly certain laws of physics. And what did Arthur do in light of this chemistry? He escaped as soon as the clock turned seven. 

Arthur sighed and watched as the on-screen figures added another stick of butter to the batter with mild repulsion. Times like these used to be cured with a smoke, but since Arthur had quit he had developed the unfortunate habit of employing Twizzlers to settle his nerves. 

“Fuck,” Arthur griped, looking down at his stomach in shock. “Am I getting fat?”

He ran until perspiration stuck to his eyelashes and his legs wobbled. Then he ran a little farther. 

** 

“…And that’s when I realized I’d had my trousers on backwards the whole time!” Yusuf finished his story, hands waving animatedly through the air. Eames, stretched languidly on the couch, was only half-listening to be completely honest; the end of his second week as a full time audiobook editor had finally arrived, but with it Eames had begun to feel a strange sense of urgency: he only had _two weeks_ left to track down his mystery orator.

“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said all night, have you,” it wasn’t a question. Yusuf’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten that look on you, mate. I _know_ that look. All crossed eyes and sweaty palms. You’ve met somebody, haven’t you?”

Eames stood and stretched so that a patch of stomach peeked out under the hem of his henley. “Green’s a good color on you,” he said, and walked out of the room. 

“Lying bastard! I look like the king of the leprechauns,” Yusuf called at his retreating back. 

*

Eames was ready to admit that he might have a problem, but it didn’t stop him from showing up at Cobb’s office for the second time after his shift ended. He had the words of Flannery O’Conner ringing in his ears and a spring in his step.

“Tell me about your friend Arthur,” Eames said, leaning against the doorframe. 

Cobb peeped over his newspaper like a frightened Meerkat. “Who?” he asked, feigning confusion.

Eames stared until he caved.

“Oh! _That_ Arthur,” Cobb recovered. “I have a hard time remembering him sometimes, because he’s so darn uninteresting. And ugly,” Cobb added with a searching look. “Have I mentioned how out-of-proportion his facial features are? Yow! Look out—big nose coming through.”

Eames tried to decide whether or not he was amused. “Does your, ah, friend know that this is how you talk about him behind his back?” 

Cobb nodded vigorously. “Oh yes, he encourages it, actually. Says he hates it when meddling people bother him.” He stooped to pick up a mostly-empty wastebasket. “Now if you’ll excuse me,” Cobb stood to his fullest height, “I have some garbage to dispose of.” 

His haughty walk reminded Eames more than slightly of Buckminster.

**

“Arthur,” Cobb declared later that evening as he sat in Arthur’s modest kitchen and tugged at the collar of his polo shirt, “I don’t want you coming into the office anymore.” 

“Why?” asked Arthur, slowly, and waited for the other shoe to drop. He added a pinch of salt to the chicken. 

“Because it’s high time I learned to work on my own,” said Cobb grandly. Arthur’s heart leaped. “And I think you may have a stalker.” Arthur’s heart sank.

“Who?” he inquired, resigned to the worst. “Hot British Guy?”

“Yes. Wait. No.” A pause. “Arthur, he wears _v-necks_ for Chrissake.”

Arthur glanced down pointedly at his own grey v-neck tee. His chin jutted out. “V-necks happen to be in right now.” 

“Fine,” Cobb rolled his eyes, “if not because of his fashion choices then because of the fact that he’s _obviously a criminal_. It’s too risky.”

“Okay,” said Arthur in a steady voice. “Does this mean that you’ll be handling the taxes this year?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Cobb snapped. “Plenty of people work from home these days.”

Arthur stepped away from the stovetop to grab two glasses and a bottle of red. “Would Monsieur like some wine to go with his unreasonable expectations?” 

“This is difficult for me too, you know,” said Cobb, peevishly, as he accepted the glass. “I’ve never considered firing a volunteer before.”

**

“Cobb?” Eames knocked twice on his office door and waited. He couldn’t hear a single sign of life from within. 

“Hello?” Eames poked in his head, saw no one, and strode into Cobb’s office with his hands in his pockets. When he reached Cobb’s desk, he paused and took in the multitude of old photographs; most showed a disarmingly beautiful woman with dark hair, although a few had shaggy blond children in terrible color-clashing outfits. The ensembles got markedly worse as they grew older. 

A small _snick_ caused Eames to look down in surprise, but his shock quickly morphed into delight when he realized that Cobb sat crouched beneath his desk. 

“Old boy,” he said with glee, “were you _hiding_ from me?” 

“No,” scowled Cobb (which meant yes). He sniffed, “I dropped a paper clip.” 

*

Week three passed by, and Eames stalked through the supermarket in a foul mood. He loaded up on beer, bread, and frozen bacon, but not much else. Eames’s restlessness had to do, partially, with listening to a man’s monotone voice drone on and on about vegan cooking for seven hours. Eames had taken to skipping forward over entire paragraphs, thinking desperately, “He’s probably alright. He probably didn’t make any errors there anyway.” But he also felt anger—annoyance at himself for getting so invested in finding Arthur, and resentment towards Cobb for complicating the process. 

In his (albeit brief) tenure as an audiobook editor, Eames had learned a rather lot about what people gave away in their voices. The brash spoke with confidence, barreling through sentences and consequently missing words or meanings. The meek stuttered their way through pages, filling the pauses with unnecessary _umms_ and the nervous clearing of throats. Both types made approximately the same number of errors.

When Arthur spoke, he had the confidence of the brash but the patience of the meek, and he missed nothing. He could sound solemn one moment and flippant the next. He was so infuriatingly contradictory that Eames couldn’t, with any certainty, create an image in his head. How could you take someone home and still not have the slightest clue?

*

Eames decided to channel this frustration into his artwork, creating a series of semi-abstract oil paintings, each one heavily influenced by a specific vocal tone. They were brilliant.

“Christ,” Yusuf said as he inspected them that Friday, impressed. “Who the hell is this mystery muse, Eames? He must be something special.” 

Eames rubbed cerulean blue off his cheek and suppressed his irritation. “No muse,” he lied through his teeth. “Just a touch of inspiration.”

“Yeah, that’s what they all say…” Yusuf squinted at the most recent canvas—roiling blue and yellow hues battling against strong orange lines. He donned the so-called professor specs. “This tension indicates, however, that you have yet to consummate your relationship,” he pointed helpfully at the jagged marks.

“Get out,” barked Eames, and he pushed Yusuf through the door before he could notice anything else. (Telling Yusuf he was wrong on that point would have been to let Yusuf win anyway.) 

Saturday was his last day.

** 

Arthur stood on the street corner opposite Cobb Learning, a bagel in one hand and binoculars in the other. If pedestrians wondered why he had the lenses trained on a retired man with a limp, they never asked. 

At length, Arthur rejected the retiree as too old and not muscular enough to be Hot British Guy, and waited for someone else to enter or exit the premises. 

In his younger years, friends, boyfriends—the awkward two week girlfriend of high school—hadn’t exactly been shy about telling Arthur that his well-intentioned perfectionism could be misinterpreted as worrisome behavior.

 _Whatever_ , thought Arthur, psyching himself up. Cobb might not let him inside the building, but this was still a free country. He had a right to know if someone had indeed begun stalking him; to turn the tables and have the stalker become the stalkee was _only fair_. It had nothing to do with the quiet, persistent thrum of hope that Arthur chose to ignore on principle.

He took another bite of bagel and nodded to himself.

*

Hours ticked by at a snail’s pace, and Arthur could feel his concentration failing. Eventually he relented and bought a grande-sized coffee, but it paled in comparison to his homemade espresso. If appreciating the finer things made Arthur a card-carrying coffee snob, so be it. 

He saw a gaggle of older men and women, a few surly teenagers, and—weirdly—a mime go in and out of Cobb’s business, but no questionable-looking British men with tattoos.

Arthur was seriously beginning to question his own lucidity, when—like a dream—out the red door strolled a man in a lavender v-neck. Dark ink spilled across his _very fit_ arms, a few days’ scruff visible on his face. And what a face it was. Jesus. 

He looked even better in the fading daylight, his eyebrows slightly pinched in sobriety and his mind obviously elsewhere.

Arthur almost lost his nerve then, could feel himself wanting to turn on his heel and scramble home. Instead he squared his shoulders, patted his hair into place, and jaywalked with purpose to the other side of the street.

**

When Eames first noticed the person with binoculars trained in his direction, he was confused and maybe a little apprehensive. Having a rap sheet did that to a man, even if he’d seldom gotten caught. 

But when the guy dropped his binoculars around his neck and made a beeline straight towards _him_ , Eames began to panic in earnest. He picked up his stride and refused to glance back, a chorus of curses and what ifs bouncing around in his head. 

“Hey!” A woman shouted when he knocked into her side. “Excuse you.” Eames had maybe reached a jogging pace. A tentative hand closed on his arm and Eames spun, immediately schooling his features into something less afraid and more impartial. 

Then his jaw dropped. 

The man standing before him—hard to make out before with the distance and obstacles—wore a stiff pinstripe button down tucked into dark trousers. The sleeves of the shirt had been rolled up, and in their absence Eames could appreciate his strong, lightly haired forearms. The unsure set of his jaw seemed at odds with his confident stance. 

“Um hi,” he said, and Eames’ eyes must have widened comically, because he recognized that voice; he hardly dared trust himself to speak. 

“You must be Arthur,” Eames said as soon as he could manage, praying to a god he didn’t believe in that he wasn’t coming off as a psychopath. 

Arthur looked flustered but not unhappy. “Yes,” he agreed, “and you must be the man Dom warned me about.”

“Eames,” said Eames, sticking out his hand. And then, “What exactly do you mean by ‘warned you about?’” 

Arthur almost looked embarrassed. “He said you’ve been stalking me, actually.”

Now Eames could feel a blush creeping up his neck. “That seems a bit strong when you figure that I never even picked up a pair of binoculars.” He mulled his options over. “I wanted to talk with you about your handling of _Dream Anatomy_. It’s phenomenal.” 

“ _Oh_ ,” Arthur said. “Oh, would you like to get coffee and discuss it?”

Eames smiled at the way Arthur’s eyebrows knit together when he knew he’d taken a chance. Eames would never have imagined that. “I’d love to, actually.” 

Christ Almighty, Arthur had dimples. 

**

“You know,” Arthur said conversationally, staring at Eames over his shoulder as they walked into Arthur’s home, “Dom really didn’t do you justice when he described you.” 

“Is that so?” asked Eames, amused, and he crowded Arthur against the back of the door. “I _have_ been told that I defy description.” 

Arthur could see the gray in his blue eyes. “I believe ‘lumpy’ was his adjective of choice. Something about a face only a mother could love?”

Eames looked as if he were about to singlehandedly elevate the district’s murder rate.

“That smarmy bastard,” he bit out, hands trailing lightly down Arthur’s sides, pressing down. “But you should know, darling, that his words for you weren’t exactly flattering either. Let’s see—uninteresting, ugly, and big nosed, he said—and that’s just harsh.” 

Arthur couldn’t remember being more offended. “Let’s kill him,” he said with conviction. “Tonight.”

Then Eames licked his way inside Arthur’s mouth, hands resting on his hips. They made out like that for a few minutes, breathing hard and fast. 

At last Arthur nipped his bottom lip. “I suppose we could wait until tomorrow,” he said, bracingly.

“Tomorrow,” Eames echoed, and took him to bed.

**Author's Note:**

> For a while this was titled "How Gay Sex Saved Dominic Cobb's Life," so thank the Lord for small miracles.


End file.
